NHTSA Says 89 Deaths May Be Linked To Toyota

The federal government now says the death toll from Toyota’s unintended acceleration crashes are up to 89. NHTSA said it now has 6,200 reports of unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles from 2000 through May 20th of this year. Those include allegations of 71 crashes in which 89 people are said to have died. That number of deaths is up 71% from NHTSA’s previous report of 52 deaths allegedly resulting from Toyota unintended acceleration.

Actually, I believe the actual numbers will be lots higher. For example, Safety Consultant Sean Kane says that incidents reported to NHTSA usually “represent only a fraction of the total” and that Congress has reports of “nearly 38,000 potential” acceleration incidents involving Toyota vehicles. That is much higher than NHTSA’s 6,200. There is no telling how many people have been killed because of Toyota’s unintended acceleration crashes. Many of the deaths were blamed on the driver’s conduct because of the speed involved.